And feebly burning ’gainst the rolling damp,
I bore it through the regions of the tomb.
“Around me stretch’d the slumbers of the dead,
Whereof the silence ached upon my ear;
More and more noiseless did I make my tread,
And yet its echoes chill’d my heart with fear.
“The former men of every age and place,
From all their wand’rings gather’d, round me lay;
The dust of wither’d Empires did I trace,
And stood ’mid Generations pass’d away.